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New Jim Crow, The - Ohio State University

The New Jim Crow'Michelle Alexander*The subject that I intend to explore today is one that most Americans seemcontent to ignore. Conversations and debates about race-much less racial caste-are frequently dismissed as yesterday's news, not relevant to the current pundits and more than a few politicians insist that we, as a nation, havefinally "moved beyond race." We have entered into the era of "post-racialism," itis said, the promised land of colorblindness. Not just in America, but around theworld, President Obama's election has been touted as the final nail in the coffin ofJim Crow, the bookend placed on the history of racial caste in triumphant notion of post-racialism is, in my view, nothing more thanfiction-a type of Orwellian doublespeak made no less sinister by virtue of the factthat the people saying it may actually believe it. Racial caste is not dead; it is aliveand well in America. The mass incarceration of poor people of color in the UnitedStates amounts to a new caste system-one specifically tailored to the political,economic, and social challenges of our time.

Those bearing criminal records and cycling in and out of our prisons today are part of a growing undercaste-not class, caste-a group of people, defined largely by race, who are relegated to a permanent second-class status by law. They can be denied the right to vote, automatically excluded from juries, and legally

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Transcription of New Jim Crow, The - Ohio State University

1 The New Jim Crow'Michelle Alexander*The subject that I intend to explore today is one that most Americans seemcontent to ignore. Conversations and debates about race-much less racial caste-are frequently dismissed as yesterday's news, not relevant to the current pundits and more than a few politicians insist that we, as a nation, havefinally "moved beyond race." We have entered into the era of "post-racialism," itis said, the promised land of colorblindness. Not just in America, but around theworld, President Obama's election has been touted as the final nail in the coffin ofJim Crow, the bookend placed on the history of racial caste in triumphant notion of post-racialism is, in my view, nothing more thanfiction-a type of Orwellian doublespeak made no less sinister by virtue of the factthat the people saying it may actually believe it. Racial caste is not dead; it is aliveand well in America. The mass incarceration of poor people of color in the UnitedStates amounts to a new caste system-one specifically tailored to the political,economic, and social challenges of our time.

2 It is the moral equivalent of am well aware that this kind of claim may be hard for many people toswallow. Particularly if you, yourself, have never spent time in prison or beenlabeled a felon, the claim may seem downright absurd. I, myself, rejected thenotion that something akin to a racial caste system could be functioning in theUnited States more than a decade ago-something that I now deeply first encountered the idea of a new racial caste system in the mid-1990swhen I was rushing to catch the bus in Oakland, California and a bright orangeposter caught my eye. It screamed in large bold print: THE DRUG WAR IS THENEW JIM CROW. I recall pausing for a moment and skimming the text of theflyer. A radical group was holding a community meeting about police brutality,the new three-strikes law in California, the drug war, and the expansion ofAmerica's prison system. The meeting was being held at a small communitychurch a few blocks away; it had seating capacity for no more than fifty people.

3 Isighed and muttered to myself something like, "Yeah, the criminal justice systemis racist in many ways, but it really doesn't help to make such absurd will just think you're crazy." I then crossed the street and hopped on the1 This article is adapted from two speeches delivered by Professor Michelle Alexander, oneat the Zocolo Public Square in Los Angeles on March 17, 2010, and another at an authors symposiumsponsored by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Open Society Instituteon October 6, 2010.* Michelle Alexander is an associate professor of law at The Ohio State University MoritzCollege of Law, where she holds a joint appointment with the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Raceand State JOURNAL OF CRIMNAL LAWbus. I was headed to my new job, director of the Racial Justice Project for theACLU in Northern I began my work at the ACLU, I assumed the criminal justice systemhad problems of racial bias, much in the same way that all major institutions in oursociety are plagued to some degree with problems associated with conscious andunconscious bias.

4 As a civil rights lawyer, I had litigated numerous class-actionemployment discrimination cases, and I understood well the many ways in whichracial stereotyping can permeate subjective decision-making processes at all levelsof an organization with devastating consequences. While at the ACLU, I shiftedmy focus from employment discrimination to criminal justice reform, anddedicated myself to the task of working with others to identify and eliminate racialbias whenever and wherever it reared its ugly the time I left the ACLU, I had come to suspect that I was wrong about thecriminal justice system. It was not just another institution infected with racial bias,but rather a different beast entirely. The activists who posted the sign on thetelephone phone were not crazy; nor were the smattering of lawyers and advocatesaround the country who were beginning to connect the dots between our currentsystem of mass incarceration and earlier forms of social control.

5 Quite belatedly, Icame to see that mass incarceration in the United States had, in fact, emerged as astunningly comprehensive and well-disguised system of racialized social controlthat functions in a manner strikingly similar to Jim State my basic thesis in the introduction to my book, The New Jim Crow:What has changed since the collapse of Jim Crow has less to dowith the basic structure of our society than the language we use to justifyit. In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to userace, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and socialcontempt. So we don't. Rather than rely on race, we use our criminaljustice system to label people of color "criminals" and then engage in allthe practices we supposedly left behind. Today it is perfectly legal todiscriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways it was once legal todiscriminate against African Americans. Once you're labeled a felon,the old forms of discrimination-employment discrimination, housingdiscrimination, denial of the right to vote, and exclusion from juryservice-are suddenly legal.

6 As a criminal, you have scarcely morerights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama atthe height of Jim Crow. We have not ended racial caste in America; wehave merely redesigned reached this conclusion reluctantly. Like many civil rights lawyers, I wasinspired to attend law school by the civil rights victories of the 1950s and MICHELLE ALEXANDER, THE NEW JIM CROW: MASS INCARCERATION IN THE AGE OFCOLORBLINDNEsS 2 (2010),8[Vol 9: 1 THE NEWJIMCROWEven in the face of growing social and political opposition to remedial policiessuch as affirmative action, I clung to the notion that the evils of Jim Crow arebehind us and that, while we have a long way to go to fulfill the dream of anegalitarian, multiracial democracy, we have made real progress. I understood theproblems plaguing poor communities of color, including problems associated withcrime and rising incarceration rates, to be a function of poverty and lack of accessto quality education-the continuing legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.]

7 Istrenuously resisted the idea that a new caste system was operating in this country;I was nearly offended by the notion. But after years of working on issues of racialprofiling, police brutality, drug law enforcement in poor communities of color, andattempting to assist people released from prison "re-enter" into a society that neverseemed to have much use for them in the first place, I had a series of experiencesthat began what I call my "awakening." I began to awaken to a racial reality that isso obvious to me now that what seems odd in retrospect is that I was blind to it forso are some facts I uncovered in the course of my work and research thatyou probably have not heard on the evening news:* More African American adults are under correctional controltoday-in prison or jail, on probation or parole-than were enslavedin 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.* In 2007 more black men were disenfranchised than in 1870, the yearthe Fifteenth Amendment was ratified prohibiting laws thatexplicitly deny the right to vote on the basis of During theJim Crow era, African Americans continued to be denied access tothe ballot through poll taxes and literacy tests.

8 Those laws havebeen struck down, but today felon disenfranchisement lawsaccomplish what poll taxes and literacy tests ultimately could not.* In many large urban areas in the United States, the majority ofworking-age African American men have criminal records. In fact,it was reported in 2002 that, in the Chicago area, if you take intoaccount prisoners, the figure is nearly 80%.One in eleven black adults was under correctional supervision at year end 2007, orapproximately million people. PEW CTR. ON THE STATES, PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS, ONE IN 31:THE LONG REACH OF AMERICAN CORRECTIONS 5 (Mar. 2009), available to the 1850 Census, approximately million adults (ages 15 and older) were slaves. BUREAU, THE SEVENTH CENSUS OF THE UNITED STATES: 1850 9 (1853), available , see also University of VirginiaLibrary, Historical Census Browser, University OF VIRGINIA LIBRARY, (last visited July 17, 2011).4 Contribution by Pamela S. Karlan, Forum: Pamela S.

9 Karlan, in GLENN C. LOURY, RACE,INCARCERATION AND AMERICAN VALUES, 41, 42 (2008).5 PAUL STREET, CHICAGO URBAN LEAGUE, THE VICIOUS CIRCLE: RACE, prison , JOBS, ANDCOMMUNITY IN CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, AND THE NATION 4 (2002).92011]OHIO State JOURNAL OF CRIMNAL LAWT hose bearing criminal records and cycling in and out of our prisons today arepart of a growing undercaste-not class, caste-a group of people, defined largelyby race, who are relegated to a permanent second-class status by law. They can bedenied the right to vote, automatically excluded from juries, and legallydiscriminated against in employment, housing, access to education, and publicbenefits, much as their grandparents and great-grandparents were during the JimCrow find that when I tell people that mass incarceration amounts to a New JimCrow, I am frequently met with shocked disbelief. The standard reply is: "Howcan you say that a racial caste system exists? Just look at Barack Obama!

10 Justlook at Oprah Winfrey! Just look at the black middle class!"The reaction is understandable. But we ought to question our emotionalreflexes. The mere fact that some African Americans have experienced greatsuccess in recent years does not mean that something akin to a caste system nolonger exists. No caste system in the United States has ever governed all blackpeople. There have always been "free blacks" and black success stories, evenduring slavery and Jim Crow. During slavery, there were some black slaveowners-not many, but some. And during Jim Crow, there were some blacklawyers and doctors-not many, but some. The unprecedented nature of blackachievement in formerly white domains today certainly suggests that the old JimCrow is dead, but it does not necessarily mean the end of racial caste. If history isany guide, it may have simply taken a different honest observer of American racial history must acknowledge thatracism is highly adaptable.


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